


two sides of a triangle

by vexedcer



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: (izzy is there but she doesn't have any dialogue sorry), Kinda?, Love Confessions, M/M, Pain, au where simon told the guys abt the seelie deal instead of just disappearing, idk how to tag this?, just a lot of pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 22:57:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12617440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vexedcer/pseuds/vexedcer
Summary: “I had no choice!” Simon finally shouts, and Jace has never felt more hopeless. Under it all, there is a pleading tone to Simon’s words, desperately trying to make them, Jace, understand why he did it and why he needs to go.(Simon has to go back to the Seelie Realm to keep Maia safe. Jace is desperate for an alternative.)





	two sides of a triangle

**Author's Note:**

> dang this has been sitting in my drive for like,,, more than a month and i managed to rewrite the whole thing in two hours? anyways, its sad pls enjoy :)

Jace feels like he’s drowning, weight on his lungs and pressure on his chest and something caught around his neck. It’s like when he lost Clary in the water jumping from the ship, only darker and deeper and scarier.

“I had no choice!” Simon finally shouts, and Jace has never felt more hopeless. Under it all, there is a pleading tone to Simon’s words, desperately trying to make them, Jace, understand why he did it and why he needs to go.

“Of course you had a choice!” Jace argues back, trying to use anger as a mask but it’s slipping because his voice cracks just a little, enough for everyone gathered to hear. He plows on even though he knows in his heart that is an argument he will lose. He feels sick. “You should have come to us!”

“You were at war! You were at war and I handled it!”

“Obviously you didn’t since you made a deal with the Seelie Queen!”

“Jace,” Clary says warningly. It’s a call to stand down but she doesn’t get that he _can’t,_ he just _can’t_ let Simon go without fighting, even if it’s fruitless. He needs to _try._

Her hand is on his bicep, like she’s keeping him from swinging. As if he’d hit Simon right now; even in the flood of his frustration, all he wants to do is gather Simon up in his arms and run away with him to somewhere the Seelies can’t find them. Maybe he wants to cuff Simon in the side of the head, just a little, but that’s not the kind of affection that Clary understands from him.

“You’re not going.” Jace declares it as if he is the only person who can make the final word on the matter, voice much stronger than he feels. Everyone else in the room, Alec and Izzy and Magnus and Luke and Maia, are watching him with pursed and stony expressions. “You’re not going and Maia can stay in the Institute and we’ll work it out.” He turns his head to where Alec is frowning above crossed arms, looking very unhappy. “We can grant Maia asylum, can’t we?”

Every head turns towards Alec, whose brow furrows down and his lips press into a thin line. “We could,” his frown deepens, “But that could be seen as breaking the Accords for interfering in an internal organisation.”

“But the Seelie Queen kidnapped Maia, that’s a breach of the Accords -”

“Can we stop talking about me like I’m not here?” Maia finally interjects and Jace wonders how long she’s been holding her tongue. Since the start of this, he assumes, since this involves her too. “And I’m not staying in the Institute. Shadowhunters treat werewolves like shit.”

“I’m trying to help you here, Maia -”

“Listen, Herondale, I don’t remember asking for your help -”

“How about we all take a minute to calm down?” Luke interrupts. The firm timber of his voice and his steady presence pushes everyone back into their places. Luke is definitely worthy of his title as Alpha, Jace thinks absently as it seems like the whole room takes a deep breath.

“Deals with the Queen are especially difficult to get out of,” Magnus says, “We need to think this through very carefully.”

Jace feels a fleeting sense of relief that at least Magnus seems to be on his side. He thinks everybody is probably on his side, but they’re being far more realistic than he is. They don’t have their heart in their throats, except maybe Clary but she’s coming across as much more collected than him.

It’s like him and Clary have switched places in a weird way - she’s calm, he’s emotional. Emotions cloud judgement, and he’s never seen her more contained and self-assured than right now. He, however, is clearly a simmering hot mess of eager desperation just under the surface of a battered facade.

“Time is running out,” Simon says, and the sun is shining through the window to light him up in vibrant gold, clashing utterly with the choking misery inside Jace’s chest. He looks beautiful and broken and Jace has never been more in love with the man standing a foot from him. Less than a month ago, he would be ash on Magnus’ carpet but he isn’t because him and Jace are linked by blood because veins don’t understand what it means to hate or love, only to survive. Their bodies don’t understand that they are not a love story, the two who kiss at the end as they ride away into a dazzling sunset.

They’re supposed to be two sides of a triangle connected to Clary, but every side of a triangle touches every other side, so it was only a matter of time until they become connected. This seems so inescapable now, and Jace realises that being the only one to fight and kick and tantrum quietly in the sorrow of Magnus’ living room has shown his hand as caring too much about the guy he supposedly hates.

Again, he feels sick.

Simon pulls a wilting rose from his pocket, the Seelie Queen’s timer as fragile and beautiful as it is ugly. He hands it to Magnus, who shares a look with Luke filled with a hopeless kind of resignation that Jace had been dreading.

“You have about an hour left,” Magnus states like Simon isn’t acutely aware of the _tick-tick-tick_ of his guillotine's clock.

“If I’m not in the Seelie Realm by the time the petals turn black -”

“Then the Seelie Queen will take Maia again,” Magnus finishes.

“We can rush the paperwork,” Jace blurts, oh so desperate and hopeless. He feels like he’s dying, and dying the first time around was nothing like this. That drowning feeling _swells_ and the words in his throat are forced out like a wave. “We can get them both asylum -”

“ _Enough_ , Jace,” Simon tells him, not a shout or a yell, but forceful and pleading as it carries in the quiet of the room. “Just -” he shakes his head, mouth pressed together like he’s holding in a sob, “Just let me go, Jace. There’s nothing we can do.”

He meets Jace’s eye, and his heart shatters into sharp little pieces. Love destroys you, he understands, he _gets_ it now, why Valentine was so insistent on not letting your heart be broken by people because all they do is fumble.

“I have to go,” Simon says, and turns to walk out the door. No tears or hugs or goodbyes because to stay the inevitable will just make this harder, for all of them.

Simon has so many hearts in his arms, Maia’s and Clary’s and his mother’s and Luke’s, because Simon is the guy who will lend a hand or shoulder to anybody in need. He cracked Jace’s heart to save Maia’s, and Jace can’t even be mad at that fumble. He doesn’t have the space with all the grief inside him.

Simon strides quickly towards the door, like he’s trying not to lose his nerve.

He’s lost the battle, and he’s about to lose Simon again. This is possibly the very last chance he’s got left.

“Simon!”  He calls after him, filled with a determination that’s sprung from nothing. Simon turns with his hand on the door handle, eyes narrowed like he expects Jace to renew his argument. Instead, Jace grabs him by the shirts and hauls him in, mouth urgently seeking Simon’s.

It’s bittersweet. He has the solid press of Simon in his arms but he knows that in a minute he will be gone and Jace’s arms will be empty. Simon kisses back with the same kind of fierceness that comes with the pain of loss, and Jace knows with all his heart that _this_ man, _this_ man who walked into his life as little more than a pain in the ass loves him back and he feels raw with the ache.

Love destroys you and you destroy your love and Jace accepts that wholly with all of himself.

He finally pulls away, too soon for either of them, and whispers furiously, “We’re going to find you a way out, so stay alive. You got it? Just -” Jace swallows, his mind filled with so much he wants to say, “- just stay alive.”

Simon nods, wide-eyed and breathing slightly heavy, before he moves out of Jace’s grip and is gone with the click of the door.

Jace looks at the closed door for a long second, before he turns to look back the way he came, where his friends and family watch him with pinched and pained expressions. He clenches empty fists and walks away down the corridor in front of him to one of Magnus’ spare rooms.

He needs to be alone.

**Author's Note:**

> i looked up what the current Accords are and interference of shadowhunters in interal organisations actually [IS illegal](http://shadowhunters.wikia.com/wiki/The_Accords). i thought that was interesting.
> 
> ik this was sad but in my head he gets out eventually and they live happily ever after.
> 
> Also! this was lowkey inspired by [this fic](http://eversall.tumblr.com/post/165283347458/jimon-i-will-remember-you) by [eversall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eversall/pseuds/eversall), bc when am i NOT inspired by her? the answer is never, everything she writes is beautiful
> 
> anyways, thanks for reading! [my main blog](http://vexedcer.tumblr.com/) [my writing blog](http://residentqueer.tumblr.com/) \- come say hi!


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